October 2011
1 post
3 tags
True Saving Faith
True saving faith is not simply a matter of believing bare truth. Even wicked men, and the demons themselves, can do that. In their case, they wish the gospel were not true! True saving faith is also not simply a matter of believing in Christ because you are afraid of going to hell: faith is is not simply a matter of avoiding punishment, where you do not have any desire to love and enjoy Christ....
March 2011
3 posts
2 tags
“At the cross, justice and mercy kiss; Jesus substituted himself for sinners and...”
– Cross: God Dies from Doctrine by Mark Driscoll by Gerry Breshears pg. 260
2 tags
Happy St. Patrick's Day
“In the light, therefore, of our faith in the Trinity I must make this choice, regardless of danger I must make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation, without fear and frankly I must spread everywhere the name of God so that after my decease I may leave a bequest to my brethren and sons whom I have baptized in the Lord—so many thousands of people.” – Patrick
(via crossway)
2 tags
God's Cause
We sing a song at NewBranch Community Church called Let Your Kingdom Come (Click to Listen) by Sovereign Grace Music. It’s from their album based on The Valley of Vision, a devotional book of Puritan Prayers.
The song draws it’s lyrics from the following prayer, God’s Cause. I read it this morning and it blessed my soul. God, let this be the prayer of every Christian:
...
February 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Never, Ever, Ever is Worship About Entertainment
A few days ago I heard a worship leader say, “To a certain degree worship is about entertaining the people in the service.”
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Read this and tell me what part of the presence of God is about your entertainment:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood...
1 tag
How God Fills Us Up...
Ephesians 2:16-19 is progressive :
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of...
1 tag
“To trust in Christ as Mediator, and to entertain a firm conviction of our...”
– John Calvin, Commentary on Ephesians
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Another synonym for Trinity
Came across this while studying the Trinity…
To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. Just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of...
3 tags
Is Your Bible Reading In Vain?
You may read your Bible, and pray over it till you die; you may wait on the preached Word every Sabbath-day, … [But] if you are not brought to cleave to him, to look to him, to believe in him, to cry out with inward adoration: “My Lord, and my God”—”How great is his goodness! How great is his beauty!”—then the outward observance of the ordinances is all in vain...
January 2011
5 posts
4 tags
Love or Doctrine?
While in Bible college I heard a number of discussions/arguments over an over. One that I heard on several occasions goes something like this: ‘Too many people focus too much on theology and doctrine and not enough on love’ and of course the vice versa: ‘Too many people focus too much on love and not enough on theology and doctrine.’
so which is it? Love or doctrine?...
2 tags
Extremist For Love
Was not Jesus an extremist for love — “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice — “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ — “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord...
2 tags
For Your Name's Sake...
‘For Your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt for it is great’ -Psalm 25:11
1. Your guilt is great 2. God alone provides pardon (through Christ) 3. The primary purpose for the pardon of sins is not to ease a wrecked conscience, nor is it to provide comfort for the pardoned (though these things are accomplished)… the primary purpose for the pardon of sins is the glory...
1 tag
Quite possibly the two greatest words in the...
[2:1] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— [3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of...
1 tag
Reasons I Loved Passion 2011
I have been blessed by the ministry of Passion ever since my sophomore year of high school. That was the year the Holy Spirit began to convict me of my lukewarm so-called Christianity. 3 formative things happened that year. 1) I read Desiring God by John Piper. 2) I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. 3) I started sneaking into Louie Giglio’s weekly College Bible study in Alpharetta, GA.
...
November 2010
6 posts
1 tag
“If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our...”
– Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, Nov. 25
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he will never be the same
When a man encounters the holiness of God, one of two things happens. He is either completely obliterated, or he is transformed into something new. Either way, he will never be the same.
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The Love of God
This is currently my favorite hymn text. The innovative worship band Ascend The Hill has a great version of it that you can listen to HERE.
The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his...
The Church Or The Theater? DL Moody
Another thing, I think, that grieves the Spirit, is the miserable policy of introducing questionable entertainments into the church. There are lotteries, for instance, that we have in many churches. If a man wants to gamble, he doesn’t have to go to some gambling den; he can stay right in the church. And there are fairs- bazaars, as they call them- where they have raffles and grab bags....
1 tag
We speak with Him directly
We speak with Him directly. It wasn’t always this way…
Numbers 12:6-8
Listen to what I say: If there is a prophet among you from the LORD, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.
Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My household. I speak with him directly, openly, and not in riddles,
he sees the form of the LORD.
Hebrews 3:1-6...
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our example
493 years ago, this past Sunday, Martin Luther hammered his 95 thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. On Sunday I read Exodus 1-7, in which God calls a shepherd with a speech impediment to deliver His nation from slavery.
These are good reminders of how God uses small, ill-equipped no-names to accomplish big, God-sized purposes. That’s what He does.
Heroes are good....
October 2010
5 posts
A Blessed Reformation Day →
Surge: The Gospel’s Movement into the City →
Remembering Luther's Legacy →
A Christian Response to Halloween →
1 tag
C.S. Lewis On Praise...
(via Jared Wilson)
In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis writes:
But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless … shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check...
September 2010
2 posts
Man Of Sorrows, What A Name (Hallelujah, What A...
2 tags
He Has Done It by Kevin Sanders
This song was...
August 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise Words by Walter...
3 tags
Behold What Wondrous Grace! Lyrics by Isaac...